Tips and advice for creating custom medical websites for doctors and their patients

In a previous blog post about medical website design, we mentioned that a good website design will typically last approximately 3 years. If your website design is older than this, then you probably aren’t incorporating the latest design trends. Something that you thought looked modern and fresh in 2014 may now appear dated, and even old fashioned.

To help you decide what to do when you’re ready to refresh your website, here are 4 design trends you might want to consider incorporating into your medical website this year:

Responsive Website Design

Be responsive with your website. This is no longer a ‘nice to have’ feature. It’s a requirement that can’t be ignored – today’s society is mobile, and it’s not going to change. This means your website design needs to be responsive, so that it looks the same when viewed from any type of device. Not sure if your website is responsive? Test it on all platforms, and all internet browsers, to ensure your patients have a consistently high-quality experience, regardless of when and where they view your site.

Less is More with Stock Images

When used in the right way, stock photos add visually interesting and compelling content to your website. They’re a much less expensive alternative to professionally-shot photos – and can be a great last-minute solution when you need something asap. However, we’ve been noticing a decline in the use of stock photos on medical websites. Instead, we’re seeing more ‘original’ photos that relate to your practice, rather than a generic image. It’s all about authenticity. Your website should serve a purpose, so everything on it – including the images – should do so too. Plus, photos of you and your team will help put a ‘real’ face to your brand.

Big and Bold Typography

We can’t ignore it. Typography is getting bigger and bolder – and we love it! More companies are turning to big, bold typography to anchor their homepages. We’re also seeing more typography used as part of the key visual on homepages. However, big and bold doesn’t always refer to the weight of the font. Instead, it’s about dedicating significant screen ‘real estate’ to a single, simple yet all-encompassing statement that communicates your expertise or your practice. (Check out a few great examples here!)

Go Long with Your Homepage

We’re seeing long-scrolling websites more and more. This could be due to the success of popular social media sites like Facebook, which enable us to scroll for hours, constantly seeing new content. People are used to this style of internet browsing, finding it a seamless and intuitive way to read online content. Plus, these long pages look great on all devices, from computers to tablets to cell phones.

Are you ready to refresh your website with some of these new design trends? Or do you need to design a brand new website?

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Increasing Patient Trust Through Medical Website Design

Patients consider a number of factors, both practical and emotional, when choosing a healthcare provider. However, when they find someone they feel they can trust, all other factors suddenly become much less important.

When it comes to establishing online trust for your healthcare practice, yes your site needs to have engaging content and yes compelling calls-to-action and page speed are important. But If people who visit your site have any doubts about how trustworthy you are, they’ll leave and never come back.

Here are some suggestions on ways to increase patient trust through your medical website design:

Deliver the information they’re searching For

When considering treatments, costs, and medications, patients trust information that comes from their healthcare providers. However, before they even make an appointment, they’ll typically consult online sources. In fact, according to the latest polls, more than 150 million Americans search for health information online. Using your website to provide specialty-specific patient education enables you to become their trusted online source.

Be authentic

Generic stock photos are everywhere. While there’s nothing wrong with using them in the right places, it’s good to use photos of you and your team in real situations. Patients want to know that their healthcare providers are real people, not faceless entities. They’re much more likely to trust what you have to say if you’re willing to show your face. And in addition to building trust, it will help build recognition for you personally.

Also, make sure you have a strong “About Us” page. After the homepage, it’s typically one of the most popular pages on a website, and often one of the most neglected. Your “About Us” page should feature important and long-standing members of your team and include details regarding their skills and expertise, in addition to their photos. This can go a long way toward building rapport and trust with new patients, as they’ll feel like they really “know” who they’re entrusting with their health.

In addition, make sure that when developing your medical website, you create a personalized message from yourself. Yes, your schooling, credentials, and associations are all very important to display on your site. But if a prospective patient sees a quote or message from the provider – welcoming them to their practice or providing a few words on why they do what they do, this goes a long way to making a doctor seem human to a patient and will ensure your office is a place they want to go for their healthcare needs.

Testimonials

You can write whatever you want about your practice on your website, but nothing carries as much weight as what people say about you. If people can identify with one of the patients from the testimonial section of your website, they’ll realize that your services can help them as well. The good news is that patients are usually happy to tell people what they think about your staff and your practice. You can use letters you’ve received, posts to your social media pages, or even responses to a patient survey. This is one of the best way to build trust in you and your services. (Don’t believe us? Check out the iHealthSpot testimonial page!)

If you are interested in learning more about ways you can increase patient trust with your medical website design, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for a FREE consultation with our experts!

10 Things to Avoid on Your Medical Website

First impressions count, and on the web, it is the design of your medical website that first captures someone’s attention. It can help you gain new patients, interact with them online, provide education, and even generate positive testimonials. But it’s not just about your website’s look. Your website should be efficient and easy to navigate as well. You should also avoid certain features and functionality that people will find annoying -- because annoyed visitors will quickly “bounce” and leave your site, before they even know how you can help them.

We’ve compiled a list of the top 10 things to avoid on your medical website to ensure online visitors who come to your site, stay on your site and – hopefully – become new patients:

Non-Responsive Design:

People today are accessing your website from their smartphones and tablets even more than they do from a desktop or laptop computer. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, visitors accessing your site will be forced to scroll from side-to-side to read your web pages. Or have to pinch-to-zoom because the words or buttons on a page are too small. This is a bad user experience and causes many people to immediately leave a site. To avoid this problem, you need a responsive medical website design that delivers an optimized experience that enables your site to adjust to a variety of screen sizes, for a variety of devices.

Broken Links:

If your site has any broken links, visitors will know right away that you haven’t updated it in a long time…which means the information they see may not be correct. They may also assume that your website is no longer active. Every website should have a custom 404 page. If your website doesn’t provide one and someone mistypes your URL in the search bar, they may even think your healthcare practice no longer exists.

Poorly Written Content:

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is designed; if you don’t have enough relevant, well-written content, then you’re going to lose potential patients. According to the latest polls, 150 million Americans search for health information online. So, it’s imperative that your website include reliable, lay-friendly patient education information so that you can be sure your patients get their health information from a trusted and reliable source – you! (Did you know that iHealthSpot includes award winning, peer-reviewed patient education for every medical specialty in its website hosting packages?)

Hard to Read Text:

In addition to being well written, your website’s content should also be easy to read. Best practice is to have a strong contrast between the text and the background. Also, avoid backgrounds that are busy as they can be distracting, making the text harder to read.

No Calls to Action:

This is especially important to help convert “visitors” to “patients”. It doesn’t make sense to explain what sets you and your practice apart from other local practitioners, without also letting your site visitors know what to do next. Simple Calls to Action like, “To learn more about our services and capabilities, call (012) 345-6789,” make it very easy for a potential patient to get in touch.

Bad Navigation:

A Call to Action is only helpful if people can find it. What if someone visits your site but doesn’t understand where to go and which pages to view? People visiting your website should be able to easily find what they need. While this seems obvious, studies have shown that a majority of small business websites don’t provide any direction or ask people to click around the pages. Your main navigation is arguably the most essential – and ever present – aspect of your website. Also, your site should include clear headlines and easy to find content that explains what you do.

No Contact Information:

A “Contact Us” form may seem like an easy way for people to reach you with their questions, but it isn’t the only way to engage with potential patients. Make it easy for people to get in touch with you via the phone and social media. If a visitor isn’t able to easily find this type of information, they’ll probably leave your site to find another practice that is easier to contact.

Long Loads:

Shorter attention spans are not just making people check their phones several hundred times per day. They’re also making people really impatient when it comes to waiting for websites to load. According to the latest research, 47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, with 40% bouncing if a site takes more than three seconds to load. And even a one-second delay can decrease patient satisfaction by approximately 16%. So, when designing your website, avoid heavy images, unnecessary media, or animations that will slow your site’s load time.

Excessive Pop Ups:

Too many pop up messages are a sure way to turn people away from your website. They irritate people the moment they appear on their screen, as they severely disrupt the reading experience… And the last thing you want to do is keep people from accessing the high-quality patient education information that your site provides.

No Social Media Links:

An unbelievable number of people are using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels to check out practices and read comments from real patients. Research shows that when friends refer friends to a doctor, that referral carries more weight than any other form of marketing. Make sure you add social media icons and links to your website pages so that users can share any information they find on your site with others. Social media is the ultimate way to get word-of-mouth referrals.

Medical professionals come to iHealthSpot for medical website design because they know they need a site that fits the unique needs of their healthcare practice. It needs to look great: it should be intuitive and clean, not confusing and cluttered. It needs to function properly, both now and in the future. And it needs to set you apart from your competitors, while inviting your patients to learn more by delving deeper into your site.

If you are interested in learning more, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our web experts today!

Healthcare Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2018

With 2017 coming to a close, we’re taking a look at how healthcare marketing strategies will be evolving in 2018 and beyond. Here’s what we think will be some of the key trends:

Research shows that more than 90% of people now read online reviews, which means that word of mouth is becoming even more important. The rise of digital sites such as RateMDs, Healthgrades, Google, and Yelp have given even more power to patients. Medical practices can’t afford to be complacent when it comes to patient reviews because if they are, the internet enables any bad experience to become widely known, very quickly. In 2018, reputation management will become a priority. Healthcare providers will need to pay more attention to their positive (and negative) reviews and ratings: proactively building, monitoring, managing, and amplifying their online reputations.

Wellness Initiatives

Wellness initiatives are also on the rise for the coming year. More people are seeking information that helps them improve both their physical and mental health through positive lifestyle changes. This means that every medical practitioner should be creating engaging, educational content about wellness – for their websites, their blogs, and their social media platforms. To help supplement their own content, they should be highlighting breaking news articles from respected medical publications, on topics relating to wellness and their specialty.

Influencer Marketing

The ever-growing use of social media platforms by everyone means that influencer marketing will become even more significant in 2018 than it’s ever been before. Influencer marketing is all about “word of mouth” posts on social media, with the influencer being someone who has the attention (and loyalty) of your current and future patients. Based on statistics, more than 70 percent of patients are more likely to book an appointment based on a reference from a social network. This makes social media for doctors and medical professionals a key channel for patient engagement. More engaged patients mean more appointments and increased referrals, making social media – and influencer marketing – the ultimate business driver for healthcare practices.

Patient Engagement

Accessibility is more important than ever. You don’t want your patients to feel abandoned or think that they’re just a number. In 2018, healthcare providers will be taking a more patient-centric approach. This will impact every aspect of a patient’s experience, from in-office interaction to online experience – including their websites and patient portals. Most patient portals were launched to achieve meaningful use reimbursements from CMS, not to improve patient engagement. This will change significantly in the next year, with more medical practices upgrading their patient portals to ensure that two-way patient communication happens effectively and efficiently. By making health records more easily delivered and retrieved, and by enabling patients to interact with them at any time of the day or night, they’ll improve patient satisfaction, and increase referrals!

Hopefully, this blog has given you some new ideas for how to evolve your marketing strategy in 2018.

Medical professionals work with iHealthSpot because they know they need a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of their healthcare practice. From award winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content, to online marketing including social media and reputation management, we enable medical practices to market themselves using proven online and offline marketing strategies.

If you are interested in learning more about what iHealthSpot can do to help evolve your marketing strategy, give us a call, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our marketing experts today!

Healthcare Marketing in 2018: Emerging Trends

In a previous blog, we discussed how important it is to make digital an integral part of your healthcare marketing strategy. However, as digital marketing continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, it can be difficult to keep up with the various technologies and tools available today. To help you stay up to date, here are some key trends you should consider as you make your healthcare marketing plans:

More Content = More Patients

Patients today do a considerable amount of online research before visiting a healthcare practitioner. This means that before a patient decides to contact you, they will search your website (and increase your social media accounts) for valuable and relevant information. If you want to market to them effectively, your website needs to provide as much specialty-specific educational information as possible. And with today’s increased competition for people’s attention, this content needs to be authoritative, interesting and share-worthy. The more medically reliable, easy-to-understand information you can provide, the more you will build engagement – and trust – with your future patients.

Social Engagement is Key

Social media is no longer a trend, it’s a way of life. Every minute of every day, there are 900,000 Facebook logins, 452,000 tweets sent and 46,200 Instagram posts (Source: Business Insider). And every post and tweet provides you with a way to connect with patients, as well as establish online relationships that help build trust and credibility. Done well, social media can boost awareness of your practice and generate new patients. The good news is it’s not complicated. However, you do need to create compelling healthcare content that is shareable, fresh, unique and – most importantly – attracts their attention.

Personalize Your Content

Technology is enabling a new generation of online marketing delivery systems that enable you to identify patient interests and deliver timely and relevant content on a one-to-one basis. For example, you can now retarget display ads to individuals who indicate and interest in your website or use marketing automation to create user profiles that help you to send personalized messaging. This “customized” content is more attention getting and generates greater interest and response because patients want to be treated like a person vs a number. Personalizing content for your patients is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must have.

Optimize for Mobile

If your website isn’t mobile-friendly yet, then it should be! In the U.S., four out of every five Americans own and use a smartphone, and this trend will continue as sales of mobile devices continue to rise. That’s why it’s critical to meet the needs (and expectations) of your patients and provide them with easy access to you with either a responsive website or mobile medical website. Both options ensure patients have an effortless online engagement with you. And both options now earn higher rankings in search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Medical professionals work with iHealthSpot because they know they need a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of their healthcare practice while staying up-to-date on the latest marketing trends and technologies. From award-winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content to online marketing including social media, we enable medical practices to market themselves using proven digital marketing strategies.

5 Top Tips for Marketing Your Medical Practice

If you’re looking for better ways to promote your medical practice, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed: search engine marketing, social media, blogs, direct mail…the options can seem endless. To help make it easier, here are five of our top tips for marketing your medical practice:

Build a Website for Your Practice

If you want to attract new patients, you’ll need to market yourself online – and to do this, you need a professional-looking website. More than 70% of adults in the U.S. search for health information online. This means you need a responsive site that looks good on any type of device, from computer to tablet to mobile phone. It also means that your site content needs to be written in a way that helps build trust in your healthcare practice.

Engage Your Patients with Email Marketing

Email isn’t just a way to send routine information like appointment reminders. You can – and should – be using it to communicate with patients, even when they don’t need to visit your office regularly. Your email messages can be about anything, from a monthly Health Tip, to a quarterly eNewsletter, to an announcement about an upcoming event. And with a low-cost email marketing platform like Constant Contact or MailChimp, you can easily automate your email campaigns, so it won’t take up much of your time. The key to email marketing success is to ensure your content educates and engages with both current and future patients.

Don’t Forget About Direct Mail!

While email is an incredibly efficient way to communicate with your patients, it’s still easy for people to ignore an email. So, why not try sending out “Welcome to the Practice” letters to all new patients, or sending birthday cards to all your patients. Personal touches like this will help you keep your patients happy—and happy patients are much more likely to refer you to their friends and family.

Market Your Practice on Facebook

With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool you can use to promote your practice – for free. However, a lot of healthcare providers don’t give their Facebook business page much thought after the initial set-up. Many people don’t realize it’s a great way to engage with patients – for example, you can post a “Fitness Challenge” and ask people to post a picture to show they’ve completed it. Facebook helps you hear what your current (and future) patients have to say and helps them feel more connected to you. And it’s the ultimate way to get word-of-mouth referrals.

Build Your Online Reputation

Today, people often use online reviews as a first step to find a new doctor. Unfortunately, they typically focus on the bad reviews more than the good. So, tobuild (and manage) your online reputation, you need to embrace online ratings and reviews. Ask your patients to rate you: add a clickable link to your website, send an email request, or keep a tablet at the front desk where patients can review you before they leave your office. Ideally, you want new reviews every week to build up your total volume of positive reviews. In time, and with enough positive reviews, your ratings will rise to the top in any online search despite a few (inevitable) critical reviews.

Medical professionals work with iHealthSpot because they know they need a full-service digital marketing partner that can support the unique needs of their healthcare practice. From award winning medical website design and proprietary patient education content, to online marketing including social media and reputation management, we enable medical practices to market themselves using proven online and offline marketing strategies.

If you are interested in learning more, contact us today, toll-free at (877) 709-0999 for your FREE consultation with our marketing experts today!

What is responsive web design anyway?

Have you ever tried to visit a website from a mobile device, only to leave because the site doesn’t display properly on your screen? You might spend a few seconds trying to zoom in and zoom out and find the information you need, but you end up leaving the site frustrated.

Don’t frustrate your customers with a website that doesn’t adjust to their mobile device. You need a responsive web design with web pages that look great at any size.

As doctors and medical professionals, your job is to respond to your patient’s healthcare needs. As medical website designers, our job is to build a site that responds to your patient’s browsing needs while online.

In 2015, our web designers are focusing fanatically on the user experience. We consider every detail from the way a visitor finds the site to how it looks on their iPhone, tablet, and laptop. A responsive web design will automatically adjust to fit any screen size. In other words, it responds to the device your patient is using. The result? A seamless transformation of your website that won’t leave your patients frustrated or disappointed.

The latest statistics from Pew Research and InMobi tell us that 60%-75% of people access the web from a mobile device. That is huge, and it’s likely to increase this year. Do you know how many visitors are using a mobile device to view your website?

And, search engines like Google LOVE responsive websites, which means your website will rank higher on Google just because it’s responsive. This is probably because website visitors spend more time on responsive websites, especially on mobile devices, which earns credibility in Google’s eyes. If people are spending more time on your website and not leaving within the first few seconds, Google will recognize that as a sign of a high quality website, which translates into higher rankings when someone searches for a doctor like you.

If that’s not enough, having a responsive website means that changes to the content or design are immediately reflected throughout the site. Typically, a mobile website is a separate site that requires you to manually update the information when you make a change. With a responsive design, everything is in one place. No more wondering if you remembered to update your office hours or on-call number on your mobile website.

Wondering if your website is responsive or not? If the site doesn't fit nicely into your smartphone screen, then it is not responsive. A responsive site will look great on any screen size, no matter what.

CONTACT FORM and one of our friendly sales representatives will be glad to assist you with your custom medical website design.

Contact Us Now for Your free quote

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Testimonials

“It was a dream working with the professional team at iHealthSpot. Procedurally they have everything down to a science. We were able to launch my client’s website ahead of schedule to rave reviews and site traffic results!“ -- Grace Carlson, APR Carlson Studio Marketing

“iHealthSpot was extremely creative and forward thinking when redesigning our website.... We receive great compliments from our patients and have increased traffic and use of our site due to the excellent visibility we have in search and how easy it is for patients to navigate our website.” -- Chris Bolduc, Bolduc Physical / Aquatic Therapy & Sports Medicine

“iHealthSpot has proven to be an excellent choice.... They listened to our needs and wants and worked closely with us to create a website that is engaging and user friendly. Their Responsive Design enables our patients to access the site, no matter where they are.... Patient traffic on our site has improved exponentially and continues to grow every day! “ -- Lani Clemens
Family Practice Center P.C.

"Do you LOVE the web site? Because I do. I think it is awesome and I can't thank you enough for working so closely with me and being so patient. Fine job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -- Janet Bivens, MD, Kendrick Family Practice

“We have lots of compliments on the new website. Thanks for being a delight to work with." -- Leisle Chung, Vanguard Skin Specialists

"The website looks FANTASTIC. Thanks to the iHealthSpot team for a beautiful job!" -- David Fein, MD, North Dallas Wellness Center